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Abstract

The design and analysis of research may cause systematic gender dependent errors to be produced in results because of gender insensitivity or androcentrism. Gender bias in research could be defined as a systematically erroneous gender dependent approach related to social construct, which incorrectly regards women and men as similar/different.

Most gender bias can be found in the context of discovery (development of hypotheses), but it has also been found in the context of justification (methodological process), which must be improved. In fact, one of the main effects of gender bias in research is partial or incorrect knowledge in the results, which are systematically different from the real values.

This paper discusses some forms of conceptual and methodological bias that may affect women’s health. It proposes a framework to analyse gender bias in the design and analysis of research carried out on women’s and men’s health problems, and on specific women’s health issues.

Using examples, the framework aims to show the different theoretical perspectives in a social or clinical research context where forms of selection, measurement and confounding bias are produced as a result of gender insensitivity. Finally, this paper underlines the importance of re-examining results so that they may be reinterpreted to produce new gender based knowledge.

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Footnotes

Funding: This work has been financed by the Spanish Research Network on Health and Gender (RISG).

Abbreviations:

ACIGH

American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists

AOR

adjusted odds ratios

CE

clinical epidemiology

CI

confidence intervals

D

differences

DSM

Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders

E

equality

EDNOS

eating disorders not otherwise specified

IRS

information retrieval system

IPV

intimate partner violence

MB

measurement bias

MeSH

medical subject headings

OR

odds ratios

PTSD

post-traumatic stress disorder

RCTs

randomised controlled trials

RR

relative risk

SB

selection bias

SE

social epidemiology

TLVs

threshold limit values

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